Fadeout
by Joseph Hansen
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Hansen is to gay detective fiction what Sara Paretsky is to feminist sleuthing. Latest novel from this author. Appeals to both the straight crime and gay fiction markets.

Fadeout is the first of Joseph Hansen's legendary novels featuring gay sleuth Dave Brandstetter.

Judging by the wreckage of Fox Olson's white convertible, it looked as if the singer had missed a narrow wooden bridge and plunged to his death. Then were was the body?

Olson's wife, daughter and son-in-law insisted it would be found. But insurance claims investigator Dave Brandstetter had his doubts. He thought Olson had chosen to disappear.

Doggedly Dave pursues leads and finds: a relationship between Olson's wife and his manager too warm to be called friendship, the sudden return after twenty odd years of a man who had been Olson's closest boyhood friend, and more than one 'fan' who had reason to resent Olson's hard-won success.

Death Claims: A Dave Brandstetter Mystery
by Joseph Hansen
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In the second of Joseph Hansen's mysteries featuring Dave Brandstetter, Brandstetter finds himself sifting through the elaborate lies surrounding the murder of John Oats, whose drugged body was found washed up on the beach. Left behind are April Stannard, John's lover, and his son, Peter, who was the beneficiary of his life insurance policy. The trouble is, Peter is missing.

"My name is Dave Brandstetter. I'm a claims investigator for the Medallion Life Insurance Company." He handed her a card. She didn't glance at it. "I'm looking for Peter Oats" he said. "He's not here. I wish he were. Maybe you can help me. The Police don't seem to care."

She was April Stannard. Her lover, Peter's father, had died. April believed he had been murdered.

Dave Brandstetter's investigation takes him through the rare-book world, to backstage at a community theatre, to the home of a world famous television performer. Along the way, Dave soon comes to agree with April!

Troublemaker (Dave Brandstetter Mysteries)
by Joseph Hansen
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The third volume in the award-winning, groundbreaking Dave Brand-stetter mystery series finds Dave investigating the murder of the owner of a local gay bar. Appearances suggest that the only witness is also the killer, but he swears he's innocent. Trouble is, he may be telling the truth.

Heather Wendell had heard the shot and then seen a light coming from her son's room. She went to investigate because Rick Wendell should have been at work and found a young man, stark naked, wiping off a revolver with Rick lying dead at his feet. Rick was part owner of a gay bar, The Hang ten, with ex boxer, Ace Kegan. The accused man, Larry Johns, had no defence.

Had Johns killed Rick? Dave Brandstetter had to find out not only to do his job as a claims investigator for Medallion Life Insurance but also because he didn't like pat answers.

Dave's investigation led him through the local gay community and into the world of arts and architecture, while the police and other interested parties pursued different avenues to the truth and what they uncovered, none of them could have anticipated.

Man Everybody Was Afraid of
by Joseph Hansen
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Also available as a signed first edition.
 

Police Chief Ben Orton had a gift for making enemies. He was proud to count among them hippies, homosexuals, and subversives of every race and religion. When his body was found, head smashed in, the locals were shocked, less because of the gruesome murder than because someone had finally dared cross Orton.

The cops immediately nabbed gay activist Cliff Kerlee. He'd threatened the Chief's life at a heated demonstration. Case closed.

Until Dave Brandstetter steps in. Dave won't buy it. Nothing fits. Orton's family won't talk. Townspeople raise more questions than they answer. What is the newswoman hiding? Why does she send her attractive young assistant after Dave, even to his bed? Dave pursues answers to the seamy, intricate puzzle. Step by step he gets closer to the truth. Until he reaches it - and finds himself face to face with death.

Skinflick
by Joseph Hansen

Gerald Dawson was an angry little man, a fundamentalist, a family man, who set out to change the world he feared and hated. He ended up murdered. The police are sure the killer is the owner of a Hollywood porno shop Dawson and his zealous cohorts had trashed. But crack insurance investigator Dave Bradstetter finds too many loose ends. Who was the runaway teenager sen with Dawson at a Sunset Strip disco? What was Dawson's connection with the porno filmmaker? Why are Dawson's widow and son so frightened?

Dave's investigation takes him from an evangelical church to a pornographic film studio, from the sunlit world of sleek cabin-cruisers to the neon nightmare of teenage drugs and prostitution. But the answers wait far away in a windswept midnight mountain wilderness, where Dave Brandstetter's life comes dramatically close to a mad and savage end.

Gravedigger
by Joseph Hansen
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Charles Westover, a disbarred lawyer, alleges that his runaway teenage daughter has been murdered and he files an insurance claim. And then he disappears, leaving claims investigator, Dave Brandstetter to sort through the pieces of the puzzle.

 Young women have been murdered by the crazed guru of a bizarre sex cult - is this what happened to Serenity Westover?

Brandstetter's investigation, set against vivid Californian backgrounds of expensive seaside suburbs and snowy mountain camps, desert towns and wilderness canyons, takes him on a quest of mounting tension and ultimate horror.

Never has he needed his renowned shrewdness and compassion more. And never has he faced so close a brush with a grisly death.

Nightwork
by Joseph Hansen
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In a remote spot outside L.A., a giant truck suddenly plunges in flames off a mountain road at midnight. It looks like an accident, but it isn't. Someone had fastened a bomb under the truck, killing owner-driver, Paul Myers, who was insured for $100,000. Crack insurance investigator, Dave Brandstetter is called in to find out what happened and why. Why was Myers hauling in that secluded spot at that hour and for whom. No one wants to answer Dave's questions but then another trucker's death arouses suspicions and a pattern begins to emerge. Gradually Dave's investigation carries him into the mysterious realms of independent trucking and corporate deceit, where smooth PR talk hides ruthless and widespread deathdealing. Although Dave finally uncovers a murder, his most startling discovery concerns a secret network poisoning all of our lives.

 Celebrated foreign correspondent, Adam Streeter is found shot dead in his elegant LA condo. The cops say suicide - so does Streeter's blind, teenage daughter. But the company that insured his life thinks otherwise and sends in crack death-claims investigator Dave Brandstetter.

And so begins a case that will take Brandstetter into the most dangerous game in the world - played for high political stakes in a Central American arena by desperate men. As he pushes deeper into the case, he unearths three more deaths seemingly linked to Streeter's. Little by little, Brandstetter narrows the hunt for the killer - only to find he himself has become the hunted, his enemy more powerful and ruthless than any he has faced before.

Early Graves

Dave Brandstetter returns home to find an unknown dead man on his doorstep, apparently the latest victim of a serial killer operating in and around Los Angeles who has been killing young gay men who have AIDS. But this victim is different, he was brought to Brandstetter's door and he wants to know why. His manhunt takes into grim byways of sickness, suffering and grief but also into the handsome enclaves of the squash court and country club set of fast money and risky debts. And events are about to take one last weird turn…

Living upstairs
by Joseph Hansen
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Review:
"This is that glorious rarity, a coming-of-age novel by a seasoned pro." People

Review:
"Sexy and historical, romantic and entertaining....[T]he work of a master." Lambda Book Report

Synopsis:
A coming-of-age novel about a gay man in 1940s Hollywood: Nathan Reed, an aspiring novelist, is drawn into the sophisticated but dangerous world of a charming Texan.

Obedience

Vietnam vet, Andy Flanagan is to be turfed off his leaky boat from an LA marina. Flanagan finds Le Van Minh, the marina's owner, dead and is promptly accused of the murder. The public defender thinks Flanagan is innocent and hires Dave Brandstetter to prove it. Dave soon discovers that other prominent Vietnamese have met violent deaths recently and he finds himself on the unseen border where American and Asian cultures clash and where ancient truths clash with contemporary greed and corruption.

The Boy Who Was Buried This Morning

Insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter attempts to find out how a young man came to be shot dead whilst engaged in a 'combat pursuit' war game near Los Angeles. As Brandstetter investigates the dead man's wealthy parents, and pursues the nervous girlfriend to Winter Creek, he encounters a dangerous, neofascist military group and the plot plunges into murky waters...

A Country Of Old Men
By Joseph Hansen
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After 21 years veteran P.I., Dave Brandstetter is finally going to get some rest - that is after one last case. He investigates a wild tale of kidnapping and murder retold by a bruised and grubby little boy found wandering on the beach alone. The police don't believe the kid - just as they don't believe there is anything to the drug-related shooting of a rock guitarist. Dave is lured out of retirement to confront the street drug barons, powerful politicians, sleazy record executives, child abuse... and to unravel as snarled a tangle of carnage and deception as he has ever faced.